Bolt SpiderWith the recent YCS finishing up this past weekend and with Dark Magician Light and Darkness Ritual Azamina (The Yugi Pile Deck) winning in Houston, Texas, we won’t be covering the changes to the market from the Forbidden & Limited List impact. Instead of this week, we will be focusing on Beyond the Brave and the top cards from the set, as there is plenty that hasn’t been covered from it and a return of a card from last week, that being Angelechy Strategy Score. Let’s dive into this new Market Watch and look at Beyond the Brave and its top cards.
The Divination of Darkness
As we start off this Market Watch, we will be looking at the card paired with Dark Time Wizard last week, and this week, we will be looking at the face of Beyond the Brave, Red-Eyes Black Dragon Exceed. This monster has seen tons of potential in both Advanced and Genesys, since you can use a Red-Eyes Black Dragon and a monster that mentions Dark Time Wizard to Summon it, but if a monster was destroyed this turn by Dark Time Wizard’s effect, you can Tribute 1 monster from anywhere on the board to Summon it instead. While this card is on the field, it's unaffected by your opponent’s activated Spell and monster effects, and if it is Special Summoned, you can Special Summon 1 Level 8 or lower monster from your GY or hand.
While we have many surprises from Beyond the Brave, players are out on the market to pick up the new Destiny HERO cards from this set. Destiny HERO - Doom Overlord is the new retrain of Destiny HERO - Doom Lord, and it does more than its original counterpart. If it’s Normal or Special Summoned, you can target 1 monster your opponent controls and banish it until the next Standby Phase. Along with that, you can send any Destiny HERO monster from your Deck to the GY to add 1 Clock Tower Prison or Dark City at Midnight from your Deck or GY to your hand, thus adding additional consistency to the new wave. This has become one of the best starters within the theme, and it’s rightfully put its claim in this new wave of support.
While talking about the new Doom Lord retrain, we also have Dark City at Midnight. This card makes your Warrior monsters gain 300 ATK each time you Special Summon a Level 8 or higher Destiny HERO monster. During the Main Phase, during the turn it was activated, you can add 1 Destiny HERO monster, or a card that mentions a Destiny HERO monster, from your Deck to your hand. Even though you side cards like D - Force now, you can straight up search for the new Destiny HERO - Destro-Dogma or Destiny HERO - Plasma for potential combos, and you are able to search for a Destiny HERO - Dark Angel to give to your opponent and negate their Spell Cards and effects. This makes this new Clock Tower Prison retrain absolutely perfect for this Deck.
Ars Magna has become one of the best engines in the game after the slaughter of Fiendsmith on the recent Forbidden & Limited list, and these cards give you additional Link Material but also can Xyz Summon a copy of Number 90: Galaxy-Eyes Photon Lord. The one that is worth mentioning here is Ars Magna the Finite and the Infinite, as it lets you search for any non-Warrior Ars Magna monster, which leads you to search for all the other Main Deck monsters and a copy of Ars Magna "Citrinitas" to your field. Being an Ultra Rare to the theme, it is slightly harder to pull, but some of the time, players use 2 copies of this card. After you banish this card to search for a non-Warrior Ars Magna monster, all your Power Patron Link Monsters' ATK becomes tripled, so they are threats to be worried about during the Battle Phase. This card can also Special Summon itself from your banishment when you Fusion or Link Summon, giving you that additional Link or Xyz Material.
Finally, for this section, we have the most overturned Secret Rare from Beyond the Brave, Theorealized Medius. This card can pivot your combo in multiple ways for every Power Patron strategy since you can Special Summon this card from your hand if you control a Power Patron card, and then you can add 1 Theorealize Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand. If you run multiples of this card, you can Special Summon it while you control another copy, as it is always treated as a Power Patron card. Then if a monster is banished face-up, you can either add 1 Ars Magna card from your Deck to your hand, or you can banish this card to Special Summon 1 Diactorus monster from your Extra Deck. This has mainly caused the price of Artmage Diactorus to spike in price, as it's an Onmi-negate when you have 3 or more different Monster Types on the field.
The new engines and Decks from Beyond the Brave have had some nice additions to the game, along with the new Forbidden & Limited List changing how Elfnote is played as well. Hopefully, the results will be great from YCS Orlando, Florida, in a couple weeks.
The Uprise of the Future
Going into the new format, Hey, Space Trunade! will be one of the most used Side Deck techs against the Angelechy threat in the meta. You can return up to 2 cards on the board to the owner’s hand, and then if a player adds a card to their hand by this effect, they return that many cards from their hand at the bottom of their Deck. The best cards to return with this happen to be Spell/Traps on the field, since it makes Angelechy and other top decks lose out on important interactions. Along with this, if they negate the activation of this card, you can activate a second one, but if they negate the effect, you might be out of luck.
Ashtra is on the players’ menu for Genesys as it turned out to be a really useful Deck for the format, as it’s being paired with either Angelechy or Endymion Invoked. Mikumari the Banisher Ashtra is run mainly at 2-3 copies per Deck since you can Special Summon it from your hand by revealing a face-down card you control and returning that face-down card to your hand or Extra Deck. And as for its Ignition Effect, you can add a non-Wyrm Ashtra monster from your Deck to your hand, thus granting you access to You the Plague Ashtra or Akasuna the Battle Ashtra, and in the future, you can search for the new Ashtrata Tamayori (YGOrganization Translation). When this card is sent to the GY as Synchro Material for an Ashtra Synchro Monster, you can target and Set 1 Trap Card from your GY to your field, thus letting you reuse cards like Typhoon, any of your Ashtra Trap Cards, Evenly Matched, Infinite Impermance, or the Angelechy Trap Cards.
On the other hand, Akasuna the Battle Ashtra, is mainly a 1-of in many of the Ashtra Decks since he does the same as every Ashtra Main Deck monster, which is to reveal and return a Set card back to your hand or Extra Deck to Special Summon itself from the hand. During the Main Phase, though, you can send 1 Trap from your hand or face-down field to the GY to change all face-up monsters on the opponent’s field to face-down Defense Position, which helps you push through what the opponent has set up. Along with this, during the End Phase, you can Set 1 Ashtra Trap from your Deck to your field to set up an interruption during your opponent’s turn.
One of the best board breakers was just released to the TCG, alongside Hey, Space Trunade! and it happens to be The Great Gallant Bandit, which is a major reference to Konami’s Ganbare Goemon series, and this card was made to acknowledge its 40th anniversary. This card is a mix of a Lava Golem and a hand, GY, or banishment negator. You can Tribute Summon this card by using monsters in your hand and on the opponent’s field, as long as you don’t control a monster on your field. This card has been a major addition to plenty of Decks like Light and Darkness Ritual, some Elfnote Variants, and even Angelechy too. This card has not only powercrept Lava Golem, it has also slightly powercrept Called by the Grave, even after its banning. So with this format, we will see plenty of this card in the Main and Side Decks of players. Be mindful of this card though, as during the Battle Phase, when this card attacks, it can switch all monsters your opponent controls to Defense Position just by revealing your hand.
Even though we covered Angelechy Strategy Score last week, it has spiked again in price, as Angelechy has solidified itself as the best Deck in the room post the Forbidden & Limited List. Being their newest Spell Card addition to the Deck, upon its activation, you can add any other Angelechy Spell/Trap from your Deck to your hand, but you can only Special Summon LIGHT and DARK Synchro Monsters from your Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. Afterwards, if this card is in your GY, except for the turn it was sent there, you can banish it to return any Angelechy Monster Card you own in your Spell/Trap Zone to the Extra Deck and Special Summon it back to your field. The major win condition of the Angelechy strategy is to lock your opponent out of their effects and use hand traps constantly when you can, as this is the closest Meta Deck we’ve had to Stun in many years.
This new post-Forbidden and Limited List update is a landscape of players trying to figure out what works and doesn’t work as there is less than 3 weeks for many to prepare for YCS Orlando, Florida. Hopefully things do change more when Magnificent Maestros releases in the TCG as that holds plenty of new imports and new reprints to anticipate for. Currently though, the format seems to be led by Angelechy, with both Light and Darkness Ritual and Elfnote right behind as we stay in this triangle format, soon to be in a 4-Deck Format with Toons as well.
Edited and co-written by Angryjon